feeding the multitudes

These days, as my first post-college cohort of married friends and same-aged cousins is beginning to have their babies and post about it on Facebook, I find myself feeling ill-prepared to have children.

That's not quite the right way to say it; I mean, I definitely want kids at some point... And I don't even think I'd be an awful parent at this point in my life, theoretically. It's just that it feels like enough work keeping my own head above water to imagine being responsible for another tiny little life. And what if I have twins?! (It's on both sides of the family...)

I have to give my mom props here. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been taking a ceramics class with my siblings this summer. (We just started spinning on the wheel this week and I'm in love -- but that's a story for another day.) Because I live less than 10 minutes away from the studio, everybody gathers at our place on Tuesday evenings around 5:30 to eat and drive to class together.

And usually, on Tuesdays, J has bro night -- also at our place. Which means there are 6 hungry young adults hanging in my living room, hot and ravenous, half an hour after I get home from work. And four of us have to eat and wash our plates and leave the house 45 minutes later.

You probably see where I'm going with this, but let me break it down.

Week One:
I forget this is happening and text Jason before leaving the office: "Just remembered my sibs are coming for dinner tonight and we have ceramics at 6:30..."

So I rush in from work, throw together a cold quinoa salad which we eat hot because there isn't time for it to cool, and J graciously grills a few extra burgers to share with my siblings. (And by a few extra, I mean ten.) We also split three fresh ears of corn between the six of us. We are 5 minutes late to our first class, and I have a pile of dirty plates to wash when I get home three hours later.

Week Two:
I give Jason a little more warning this time, and ask nicely; so he (again, graciously) makes three extra pounds of grilled chicken, and grills up the last of our potatoes and a sad pile of waning wax beans (i.e. the only thing grillable in our crisper). I'm sure the boys are still hungry, but my hands are tied.

Week Three:
Asha texts me in the afternoon asking if we can have pizza for dinner. I breathe a sigh of relief and reply, "Done. That's exactly what I was thinking for tonight."

I order two large pizzas online before leaving work, and pick them up on my way home. (I beat most of the people back to my house that night...)

When J and I order pizza, we spend about $13 and eat it for breakfast AND lunch the next day. I spent more than twice that much on pizza that night, and it was gone within 20 minutes.

Week Four:
Monday night, 9:30 p.m. J and I are on our way home from eating dinner at my parents' house. I remember, in exhausted desperation, that we have to somehow feed 6 people in less than 24 hours, and the only thing in the fridge is Guinness and hard-boiled eggs.

I wake up early on Tuesday and -- on a whim -- take chicken thighs out of the freezer, chop up some potatoes and dump it all into a slow cooker with a can of diced tomatoes and a bunch of herbs.

I put on rice when I got home, and it all turns out pretty well. I feel like I nailed it for the first time since ceramics started -- and everyone washes their own plates.

And then when I open the tupperware of leftovers at lunch the next day, it's all potatoes. The chicken got completely polished off the night before.

* * * * *
I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining; like most of my life's struggles, I'm looking at this as an exercise. And it's such good exercise that I have to give my mom mad props for feeding us breakfast, lunch and dinner when we were little (four little kids under the age of 6) and, when we got older, coming home from work and making dinner every day and half the time eating only what was left on our plates. And not only that, but a good percent of the time, everything got ready at more or less the same time. It's not as easy as moms make it look.

I am enjoying this exercise while it lasts, and it's already made me stronger -- but I will be glad to get back to my regular struggles of worrying about what the two of us will eat every night of the week (except the two nights where our moms still feed us), plus leftovers for lunch. And for the time being, I'm happy not trying to feed a small, brand-new human (or two or three) who will probably refuse to eat and/or will throw most of the food at me. I'm sure I'll be delighted about it someday, but right now I've got enough on my plate.

This Friday evening, it's a G+T, a pickle, a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie and a PB&J. And Jason made the sandwich for me.

appreciation

Considering how terrible I typically am at keeping in touch, I have spent time in person with a surprising number of Ole classmates since May 29.  Thanks to Bizz III, and to Grampa and Thomas for making her possible.

I swear that car is the automotive version of me -- she's cute, in a flashy-granola kind of way.  She's gas-pedal-happy, likes to be on the open road, hates waiting in traffic; hates changing gears but when it comes down to it, she's got a tiny turn radius.  Comfortable cruising speed around 60mph.  She likes to flirt with trucks, other VWs, hatchbacks, station wagons, and Rovers.  Also cute boys in SUVs with Minnesota license plates, who went to Wayzata High School.

I spent the weekend in Boston visiting my brother at Northeastern -- asked for Saturday off since his studio project was due on Friday and he wouldn't be working on it all weekend as usual.  Despite the fact that I spent the majority of Saturday's daylight in the car, I clocked 90,000 steps and got a mild sunburn.  Boston is a really cool city, but going back there this time I was surprised at how fiercely fond I have become of Wilmington.  The past two times I visited Boston I was scheming up ways to move there; this time, I found myself comparing it constantly with "home" -- not always favorably, but definitely fondly.  And like I said, the fierceness of that fondness is what struck me most.  I hook onto the strangest places.

Ann once accused me of liking to defend people, and I think she made a really interesting point.  I do tend to enjoy the company of difficult, dysfunctional, or abrasive people, and I fiercely treasure their selling points despite all the external spines.  I could easily translate this to places, too: the infamous Amsterdam, for one, and now Wilmington.  Although it does bother me that it's so hard to walk or ride bike around this city...  I do really love that about Boston.  And don't get me wrong, I had a really wonderful time there this weekend.

I didn't even mind the driving as much as I normally do -- a la Friday's "patience" reminder.  That being said, I was not by any means immune to the stresses of traffic and wrong turns.  One section of I-84 was completely closed off -- after waiting in an hour of confused bumper-to-bumper traffic I rerouted myself to rural Connecticut, and stopped at two separate gas stations to ask for directions.  The second time I asked, "Can you tell me how to get to Waterbury?"  And the guy just looked at me and said, "This is Waterbury."

I blazed by Christian in Hartford, Karin in Queens, stopped for a quick falafel in New Haven with Audrey, and narrowly avoided impulsively turning west on 87 instead of east, to hit up Amsterdam's homecoming weekend.  I carry your hearts, I carry them in my heart.  Feeling strung out, I finally pulled onto Andrew and Britta's Jersey City street, parked a fuming Bizz III on the curb, and decided to tackle the Jersey Turnpike first thing Monday morning.  We stayed in, eating Chinese delivery and drinking Brooklyn Oktoberfest while watching Dude Where's My Car.  Classic.  I really am lucky to have such great friends.

And I left Jersey City at 4am, startling a skunk eating trash on the sidewalk (fortunately no stinking at me, he hid in somebody's wheel well while I passed by).  I had to stop 10 miles out of Delaware to get gas -- seven-dollars' worth to be exact, and self-service is illegal in New Jersey.  So I had to give a kindly old gas attendant my measly seven dollars, just so I could get home, and get to work in another 2 hours.  "Have a nice day now, Hon," he said with a smile as I drove away.

I love the people in my life.

I know a lot of us are feeling a little desperate right now, dissatisfied with our jobs or maybe lonely, or maybe that there is no end in sight.  What I'm remembering is that it takes time to adjust, and as it turns out we have plenty of it.  We just have to be patient.  (I am the worst at that.)  It also helps to pick up the phone, or to stop in Jersey City every now and then.